Greg Woods - Quaker Ranter

The gray wave that wasn’t

Martin Kelley — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 00:25:11 +0000

Back in March, Friends Journal and the Earlham School of Religion co-hosted an online discussion with six Quaker candidates for congressional seats. The idea and coordination came from the awesome Greg Woods. I went to see just how high the 2018 “gray wave” had crested.

Spoilers: no wave. Four of the candidates didn’t make it out of the primaries and a fifth was running as an independent in a long-shot candidacy. The one candidate to win major-party primary was the awesome Shawna Roberts¹ of Barnesville, Ohio. Shawna’s one of the most down-to-earth, real, people I know and it was a lot of fun to follow her campaign. Her twitter feed has been a hoot:

Last night, at the BPW forum, my opponent’s statement said his childhood home “didn’t even have indoor plumbing.”

Oh, Bill. Indoor plumbing’s still pending at our old farm house.
You can’t out-hillbilly me. Unless you eat squirrel brains. I draw the line at squirrel brains. pic.twitter.com/hGMJvQ8Yhq

— Shawna Roberts (@RobertsOhioD6) October 20, 2018

Unfortunately Shawna only got about 30 percent of the vote yesterday. This election was not kind to Democrats in rural districts like southeast Ohio’s 6 and she was running against an incumbent. From my vantage point 30 percent seems pretty good, though as my seventh grade math teacher used to intone in his weary baritone, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. traced it down (Popik was an essential source tracking this Quaker bumpersticker).">² Still, the prospect of a Mrs Roberts Goes to Washington win had me hoping against the odds. I’d love to see her continue to be involved: 2020 is only two years away.

Stats on everyone’s results are at the updated Quakers in Politics page. For anyone wondering about Quaker politicians, Paul Buckley had a nice overview of our complicated relationship to voting a few years ago.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

Quakers in Politics Live Web Panel (March 22 2018)

Martin Kelley — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 01:46:55 +0000

Back last August, Greg Woods noticed that there were some Quakers running for U.S. Congressional seats. While modern-day Quaker politicians are not unheard of, they’re also not particularly common and it seemed like there was a bumper crop. The idea to interview them took on a momentum, even as we started to learn about more candidates. It’s grown into a Quakers in Politics Live Web Panel set to take place on Thursday, March 22nd at 3pm EDT. There’s six confirmed Quaker candidates and the event is co-sponsored by the Earlham School of Religion and Friends Journal. The moderator will be Earlham College President Alan Price.

The upcoming U.S. Congressional mid-term elections already have at least seven Quaker candidates for office. How does their Quaker faith inform these candidates’ desires to run for Congress? What advice would they have for other Quakers wanting to run for office in the future?

It’s a pretty interesting bunch and I’m looking forward to lots of good questions about the intersection of faith and politics in 2018.

Steve Bacher (Pennsylvania 8th District, @stevebacher)
Adam Coker (North Carolina 13th District, @AdamFromNC)
Darlene McDonald (Utah 4th District, @VoteDarlene)
Shawna Roberts (Ohio 6th District, @RobertsOhioD6)
Molly Sheehan (Pennsylvania 5th District, @pennsymolly)
Nick Thomas (Colorado 2nd District, @NickT4Congress)

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

Chatting with Greg Woods

Martin Kelley — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 23:10:07 +0000

Yesterday I had a nice video chat with my friend Greg Woods, whose article, Organizing Young Adult Friends Online, appeared in November’s Friends Journal. Greg and I have been having variations on this conversation for years. Back in 2011, we worked together alongside Stephen Dotson to put together a now-dated Young Adult Friends website (watch us eat in double-time in its promotional video!). I believe it was the fourth YAF organizing website I had built since the mid-90s. Greg is now putting together a network of Quaker campus ministries. It’s one of those obvious needs that I hope Friends will support.

“When I came here to learn more about the wider Christian world, I realized that people are…”

Martin Kelley — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:20:09 +0000

“When I came here to learn more about the wider Christian world, I realized that people are interested in learning more about Quakers and what we have to offer other denominations.”

— Greg Woods: The Uniqueness of Quakerism http://bit.ly/14Gd5zK